 November 17, 2011 - 8:27am | At long last, I've played my first game of Star Frontiers. All the wondering around my cousin's old boxed set, all the tentative conversations about playing the game. At last I've finally played. Although... with all the house rules and patches through the Star Frontiersman I'm not sure how much we're playing Star Frontiers vs. some mutant aberration of the game. Nevertheless, I thought it kicked ass, and can't wait to play again. What we're using: - The setting was brainstormed by the players in the first two character creation sessions, so we're making our own universe and races. - A Skilled Frontier. We're using the rules from the Star Frontiersman #9 for skills, skill advancement, and ability advancement. We've tweaked untrained skill checks to encourage characters to try anything. Skills that require specialized training can't be used untrained, but everything else (Stealth for example) can be attempted untrained. I generally like the balance of the Difficulty Classes in D&D 4e (found in the Rules Compendium by dividing each Difficulty Class by 20), which are 60% for an easy task, 40% for a moderate one, and 10% for a hard one. The Star Frontiersman #16 has a very similar rule; assuming that the average score is 50, the Star Frontiersman calculates adjustments for easy, average, and hard checks at 55% (extremely close to D&D), 40% (exactly D&D), and 25% (higher than D&D). To make SF and D&D completely analogous, I used modifiers of +35% for easy tasks, +15% for average tasks, and -15% for Hard tasks. So far, so good. - Experience Points. The Skilled Frontier article makes it really easy to advance in skills, and I think that's a good thing. Regardless, I can sort of imagine the players instantly and automatically maxing out their prime skills and then sniffing around for other stuff to raise (stuff they're not as interested in). I've been playing some indie games lately--Dogs in the Vineyard and Apocalypse World--where skills are increased in pretty interesting ways and usually depending on what happens in the game. Last night I experimented with assigning 1 XP per interesting skill use, where the skill in some way factored into the story regardless of success or failure. This point of XP is mapped to the skill that was used. I also assigned "character points," which are freeform XP assigned for good role-playing and other stuff. The result is, the characters are the sum of what they do and what they pursue. And they get XP to put toward skills of their choice. I figure an average of 4-7 XP per session. - Ablative Damage. I'm experimenting with using this for PCs because I like the way it increases the tension of the game. I think I'll use it with major NPCs too, but mostly with NPCs I'll just use the hit locations and damages in the Star Frontiersman #2. It would be a nightmare keeping track of those little boxes for every baddie on the board. The method presented in the SF #2 means I usually just have to keep track of when an adversary has been hit for over half his stamina. Then apply effects. - Humans don't get a special ability in SF, but I sorta want to encourage a human-centric universe. I've taken a page from D&D and given them an extra starting skill or additional skill level (player's choice). Hm, I think I'm using other stuff too, but it's been a week and I can't remember. Had to call off session 2 because two of us (including me, the GM) were sick. But I hope to return next week. At any rate, congratulations to everyone who's contributed articles to the Star Frontiersman and kept this game alive. Before I randomly stumbled across this site, I was prepared to play the game as-is, customizing as I went. I'd say the Star Frontiersman has saved me several years of work in that regard and it's made the game sing. In conclusion, I think my favorite thing about Star Frontiers at the moment is its minimalist and modular nature. At its core, it's very, very simple. The Skilled Frontier rules make it even simpler to run on the fly, they make characters infinitely customizable. Since the character sheets aren't clogged with mechanics, the players aren't looking to those mechanics to figure out what to do; they have two or three skills written down and a few ability scores--the rest is imagination and make-believe. In our session, people were ready to try anything. They didn't feel restricted or stymied. Man, it was such a great time. Very much looking forward to playing again. Thanks, everyone who's contributed, for your awesome work. |
 November 17, 2011 - 2:31pm | Ha! The Star Frontiersman is a patch for Alpha Dawn and Knights Hawks. Love it! |
November 17, 2011 - 2:42pm | Are you referring to SFman #2 Hit Location or the Ablative Damage in #8? I wonder if a sheet full of NPC silhouettes and boxes would help? |
 November 18, 2011 - 9:23am | Although... with all the house rules and patches through the Star Frontiersman I'm not sure how much we're playing Star Frontiers vs. some mutant aberration of the game. SF by its very nature is a customizable game. Anyone that lacks some semblence of basic creativity would be much happier playing something else. I doubt there's a gamer out there that doesn't implement house rules to their games, so why should SF be any different? Take my game --- I took all the basics that were laid out in the text and made the Frontier MINE from there. I have a UPF, their history hasn't been changed. But they're second fiddle in my game, hiding in remote systems while a dictator runs the Frontier with a tightly clenched fist. A very loose paradigm of Emporer Palpatine/Rebel Alliance if you will. It doesn't change the game one bit, it's simply an alternate setting that adds a new flavor to what the writers may have originally had in mind. |
 November 20, 2011 - 2:26am | Drammattex: The articles you chose for your game seem to be the popular ones going around the community. In other words, that's the popular setup for most games going on right now. Bill's FrontierSpace will be coming out eventually that has all those rules hard-coded into the system. (With a few tweaks.) So if you like how your game went, you'll probably like the new FrontierSpace game. The Skilled Frontier and Abblative Damage may make it feel bastardized from Star Frontiers, but it will be native in the FrontierSpace game. I like your translations from D&D. Could you post some details on that in the d20 conversions project, please? Also, you might do an article on it for the Star Frontiersman. I'd like a document to reference with it. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
November 20, 2011 - 6:15pm | I just noticed Shane has some of our FS artwork on his site. w00t! |
November 22, 2011 - 9:14am | Hey guys! All of this sounds great. W00t, I am indeed talking about the hit locations from SFman 2 and ablative damage from 8. Basically, for damage to NPCs/creatures I'm using SFman 2. For damage to PCs and important NPCs I'm using SFman 8. In SFman 2, doing enough damage (half stamina) to a location will hinder the creature in a given way (iirc every location but the head works that way). I just want to scratch down numbers on paper when the PCs are working through baddies. However, in the case of a major adversary I will probably use the SFman 8 rules for them. And I'll always use the SFman 8 rules for PCs. That's the plan, anyway. ShadowShack and Ascent: yeah, totally. Love the customization of Star Frontiers. I agree that everyone customizes an RPG to some extent, but for me some are harder to customize than others. That is to say, anything with lots of crunchy systems and subsystems is hard to customize because oftentimes everything you tweak or remove affects a different mechanical aspect of the game. Star Frontiers is light enough that you can change and adapt with impunity and you're not going to break anything. And if you do, you just adjust a little one way or the other. I'm excited to see what FrontierSpace looks like. I sort of hope it's a game that's somewhat compatible with these rules we're using now from the SFman, cuz I sure am loving them. Session 2 tonight! This time I'm going to delve into combat. I'm anxious about that. Wish me luck! |
November 22, 2011 - 9:30am | I like your translations from D&D. Could you post some details on that in the d20 conversions project, please? Also, you might do an article on it for the Star Frontiersman. I'd like a document to reference with it.
I will do so! I'm a bit behind with some work right now, but I do mean to get to it and will share all I've learned. One thing 4e does well is mechanical balance and a very efficient economy of actions and basic effects in combat. For better or for worse, it's a good thing to grok. Like the turn, for instance. In D&D 4e, you get a move action, a standard action, and a minor action. (Or 2 moves and a minor. Or 2 minors and a move. Or 3 minors; you can trade up). That basic structure has proven pretty solid for me, and it works with Star Frontiers pretty seamlessly, I think, and is pretty well in line with the original rules to Star Frontiers--just defined a little simpler. Also, in D&D 4e they've limited extremly punishing effects like stun. In the original Star Frontiers and most earlier versions of D&D, if you're held or stunned, forget it. You're out of the game. Maybe you can make a saving throw to get out, but if you fail, you might as well read a book or play on the internet. In D&D 4e, those effects are usually "Save Ends," which = a 55% chance per turn that you'll pull out of them. Thus, in Star Frontiers, if a character is stunned, I'm more likely to have them either roll under 55% every round until they're un-stunned or else make a stamina check in which they must roll under their stamina (more punishing). What I won't do is say "Hey, you're stunned for d100 rounds! Have a nice night!" Anyway, that's something I've taken from D&D 4e... I guess I'd sum it up as: economizing turns to make sure everybody gets more play time. Outside of combat, though, I'm a lot more of a freeform improvisor/storyteller. If there's a chance of something failing or becoming more complicated with a failed roll, I'll have them roll the dice. Otherwise, it's more of a long-form improv. |
November 22, 2011 - 9:32pm | Hey guys! ShadowShack and Ascent: yeah, totally. Love the customization of Star Frontiers. I agree that everyone customizes an RPG to some extent, but for me some are harder to customize than others. That is to say, anything with lots of crunchy systems and subsystems is hard to customize because oftentimes everything you tweak or remove affects a different mechanical aspect of the game. Star Frontiers is light enough that you can change and adapt with impunity and you're not going to break anything. And if you do, you just adjust a little one way or the other. I'm excited to see what FrontierSpace looks like. I sort of hope it's a game that's somewhat compatible with these rules we're using now from the SFman, cuz I sure am loving them. The Skilled Frontier article, the Experience Points mechanic and the Specialization mechanic were all designed by Bill who is the designer of FrontierSpace and he is including them and I believe the Abblative Damage information into the game system with probable minor tweaks. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
